HELLBOY II: THE
GOLDEN ARMY

2004's Hellboy
was a sprawling, mysterious, comical, slimy, and idiosyncratic monster movie.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army has all of those qualities and one more:
restraint. Well, at least a newfound sense of limitation; this sequel overdoses
in a big way on fantasy tangents, yet, unlike the earlier picture, it clicks
together with a greater, more direct geek panache.

On orders to keep his crimson
mug out of the public eye, facing the domestic wrath of pyro-ready girlfriend
Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), and trying to console amphibious friend Abe Sapien
(Doug Jones, in both body and voice this time out) as he explores love for the
first time, Hellboy (Ron Perlman) has a full dance card of problems. When
ancient royalty Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) rises up to seize control of a magical
crown that controls the all-powerful robotic Golden Army, it's up to Hellboy and
the BPRD to stop him. However, as the human-friendly demon gets closer to
killing Nuada, he's forced to reconsider his place in the world, and where his
allegiance truly lies.

It goes without saying these
days that writer/director Guillermo del Toro has one of the most powerfully
erect imaginations in the entertainment business. His insatiable desire for all
things supernatural is a stunning obsession, leading to a career slanted toward
the continual evocation of the unreal. The effective Blade II aside,
Hellboy was truly del Toro playing in a conventional Hollywood sandbox, and
it seemed to wear him down. For a film sporadically delightful and containing
unforgettable characterization, Hellboy felt hopelessly immobile, losing
itself entirely to the excesses of genre requirements in the final reel,
stealing the small handfuls of glee almost accidentally left behind.

"Imagine A New Hope set entirely inside the Mos Eisely
cantina!"

It's interesting to note that
Golden Army is del Toro's first film since his 2006 triumph Pan's
Labyrinth, and a familiar fantastical blood still courses through his veins.
The new Hellboy adventure plays as though it was made by a man emboldened
by his recent directorial choices, taking a beloved franchise and embracing it
with every bit of love and newfound power he could muster. Golden Army is
an uninhibited snapshot of del Toro's gummy ambitions, now allowed a proper
big-ticket budget to imagine worlds beyond our own, creatures of every possible
angle and temperament, and a threat worth summoning building-smashing bravery to
fend off.

However, as boundless as del
Toro's gusto is, he's still short a certain ability to rein all of his ideas in
and sharpen his storytelling skills to a fine, effective point.

Golden Army loves its
monsters: there are creatures stomping over nearly every frame of the film,
filling this expanded world with a community of hostile outcasts to find a more
suitable context for our hornless hero. The make-up and CG work in the film are
outstanding, but it comes at a crushing price: it distracts del Toro. With a
veritable Muppet Show of goblins and assorted blobs running around, the director
becomes enamored with every Forrest Ackerman detour, often applying brakes to
the film to monitor the horror, which effectively loosens the already threadbare
tension of the film (the Nuada subplot is a dud). There's little doubt del Toro
puts on one helluva show, but he's a kid in a candy store in every release,
absent a specific discipline that could merge wondrous beastly expressions with
a rigid pacing and exhaustive dramatics.

Can you imagine
A New Hope set entirely inside the Mos Eisely
cantina? Golden Army comes dangerously close to that unpleasant aesthetic
too many times.

Once
del Toro is pried away from his fiendish vices, Golden Army reveals
itself to be a wonderfully touching character odyssey for Hellboy, as he
struggles with his place among the humans, not to mention his difficulty
expressing love for Liz. Perlman is just so positively perfect in this role that
every scene with Hellboy that doesn't involve things going kablooey is a
delight, furthering the soul-searching needed to temper the outrageousness of
his exterior.

The director even manages to
sneak in magnificent, beer-fuelled bonding time between Hellboy and Abe,
refreshing the friendship between "Red" and "Blue," while also giving the
fish-man a little more to do with a bizarre, yet quite fruitful romantic
subplot. There's also a new boss for the BPRD in Johann Kraus, a steampunk-inspired
creation who looks like a robot and speaks with a goofy Hogan's Heroes German
accent (voiced by Seth MacFarlane), who brings fresh energy into the film. An
energy that takes a good half of the movie to compute, but eventually falls into
line with del Toro's exaggerated comedic beats.

I enjoyed Golden Army
much more than the original Hellboy, but the concept still needs a
fixation outside of ghouls and goblins. The moments that light up this sequel
are the personal asides, infusing resplendent warmth that del Toro could
manipulate even further for maximum investment. Surely Golden Army
fulfils every sci-fi fantasy around, but watching Hellboy find his purpose,
contemplate his newly complicated future, or recall his past (a lovely prologue
shows the character a curious boy in a veritable Jean Shepherd Christmas card)
is where the real awe of the premise is found, not by dancing the Monster Mash
until your eyes bleed.